Research on Pre-K Programs

In this Education Week article, William Gormley (Georgetown University) sums up the research on early-childhood education:

• High-quality pre-K programs can substantially boost the school readiness of disadvantaged children. This has been demonstrated by the Perry Preschool Project, the Abecedarian Project, the Chicago Child-Parent Centers Project, and many others. How about middle-class children? It’s true that poor children benefit the most, but there are significant gains for middle-class children as well.

• The cognitive benefits from pre-K often fade as students move from kindergarten to third grade. The amount of fade-out depends on the quality of pre-K programs and the extent to which kindergarten through third-grade teachers adjusted their expectations when better-prepared children entered their classrooms. Fade-out is also reduced by introducing “soft skills” (such as attentiveness) into the curriculum.

• Fade-out in the primary grades notwithstanding, the long-term benefits of high-quality pre-K programs are substantial: improved high-school graduation rates, lower rates of juvenile delinquency, less substance abuse, and higher adult earnings. Sophisticated research in Georgia indicates that the long-range benefits of high-quality pre-school exceed costs by at least 5 to 1.

“Charting Pre-K’s Value for All” by William Gormley Jr. in Education Week, May 8, 2013 (Vol. 32, #30, p. 26, 29), www.edweek.org;

From the Marshall Memo #485